Great opportunity for a Head of Sales & Operations. We would love to hear from you if you are someone with a strong record as a manager or assistant manager who is ready for the next level. What you would get is a real operation to run, and manage and a team beneath you, direct access to the Chief Executive, and for the right person a path to becoming his number two.

The Job:

• Own the performance of sales and customer operations across the trade: conversion, average booking value, service standards, review scores and contacts per booking
• Lead the Customer Operations Manager rather than around them - set the objectives, hold the standard, and let them run the day-to-day
• Make sure the team is resourced against real demand across the season, and say early when it is not
• Take ownership of the operational decisions that currently reach the Chief Executive, and make them
• Own the conversion of every enquiry that reaches a person, and the plan for improving it
• Raise average booking value through better consultative selling, not discounting
• Grow our travel trade channel from a standing start to a meaningful share of sales, and own the relationships that come with it
• Represent sales and operations at the weekly business review - the numbers, what sits behind them, and what you are doing about them
• Deputise for the Chief Executive on operational matters in their absence, and increasingly by design rather than only by absence
• Contribute to planning and budgeting for your part of the business, and be accountable for delivering against it
• Work with the technology team on what to build or automate next, with the evidence for why
• Protect our service reputation we compete on it, and review scores are a company-level measure
• Be the final point of escalation below the Chief Executive: the person who takes the difficult complaint and resolves it well
• Hold the relationships that bring customers back, and treat the repeat rate as a number you own
• Handle supplier failures and itinerary changes with judgement, speed and a clear head about cost

What We're Looking For

• Educated to degree level or equivalent
• Several years in sales or customer service, including a good period at manager or assistant manager level, with a genuine record of running a team and improving how it performs - we will want to talk about specific numbers
• Ready for the step up: this should be a bigger job than your last one, and you should want it to be
• Commercially literate - comfortable with conversion, average booking value, margin and cost of sale, and able to see what is really driving a number
• Numerate and evidence led. You will be asked how you know, and "it feels like it" is not an answer
• Able to lead through another manager without either abandoning them or doing their job for them

The Package:

• London based Hybrid
• Salary £50,000 - £60,000

Interested:

• If you would like to apply for the above vacancy, please click 'APPLY' or email your cv to helen@traveltraderecruitment.co.uk